Every real campaign starts out with four or five complete strangers meeting in a bar. Suddenly, they decide to band together for the rest of their lives. They now trust each other completely. Or, they will now spend the rest of their lives being suspicious of and manipulating each other to climb to the top of the pile.
What if those strangers knew each other previously? I’m not talking about every single one of them, but what if each pair had a prior relationship? Why shouldn’t a pair of siblings down on their luck meet up with a merchant and his loyal bodyguard just as the merchant is about to begin a dangerous trek north through Goblin territory?
Here are a few reasons you may consider building duets into your next campaign.
It gives the character an anchor to the group
It’s easy for an antisocial thief with kleptomania and a lifetime of trust issues to walk away from a group, but it may be more difficult for him to also walk away from his blind healer sister who happens to believe that the party’s quest is an important one. A Half-Orc with an appetite for faces may be encouraged to tone down her behavior while her half-brother cleric is watching her. Someone who saves your sibling/friend/confidant/lover/partner/gardener is likely to earn your trust at the same time. This means faster party adherence and improved party cohesion. “I leave the party to die,” is suddenly no longer an option.
It encourages more developed backstories
Brothers don’t just spring into existence; they typically had parents at one point. Are they still alive? What were those relationships like? Who between the characters is the older one? These are natural questions that pop up as soon as you buy into this bond. Likewise, a merchant/bodyguard relationship is liable to include a conversation about how much the merchant is paying for this service, what the relationship has been like so far, and how they met. Lovers will have to decide how they feel about marriage and children, and how they handle major differences between them.
It provides an easy hook for stories
What if your sibling gets kidnapped? One sibling can be dragged away for a few solo scenes while the other sibling leads the party on a frantic search, in the process learning that he/she can depend on them to take care of his/her family. What happens if one lover gets pregnant? Or, in the case of non-traditional partnerships, if one of them wants to have a child but can’t because of biology? Can a gnoll and a gnome even reproduce? I hope not. But what if they wanted to? What if two mercenaries find out their old outfit is missing in action and they want to recover the standard of their company? That’s two backstory tie-ins for the price of one.
It provides an opportunity for experienced players to mentor new players
Very few people begin playing role play games with a solid understanding of exactly what making a character entails. This provides a great opportunity for more experienced players to work together with new players to create two characters which complement each other. The experienced player can also walk the new player through the process of imagining up the fluff that is the majority of the character, the stuff that never makes it onto the actual character sheet. Being the new guy at the table and having to handle everything yourself is daunting, but being paired up with one person who knows the ropes means you get direct assistance without everyone staring at you waiting for you to understand.
It engages some players who focus more on relationships
I’m talking about introducing elements into your game that go beyond stabbing people in the face and stealing any part of them that isn’t too damaged to identify. While many gamers certainly do enjoy a healthy dose of violence and Spartan diplomacy, some that I have spoken to have been turned off by too much testosterone at the table. Adding a focus on relationships means that the gamers who find groups a bit too much like a Viking raiding party will have more to explore and play to. Look at novels written by weak authors and then novels written by skilled authors and you may notice that many weak authors focus more on quick surface emotions with actions as expression, while many skilled authors tend to focus on the relationships between the characters and how those relationships inform the action of the novel. Take this to heart and step up the way you’re starting (and running) your campaign in a more inclusive manner.
Any player of any gender can appreciate a greater impact in relationships. In fact, relationships should drive the story more than anything else: between the characters, between a character and an NPC, between the characters and the villain, between the villain and an NPC. Stabbing people over and over in the face may be satisfying at times, but it’s the relationship dynamics that provide the context and the reason for the satisfaction. This goes for more than just groups trying to appease a not-as-bloodthirsty player. If a GM finds that their party tends to prey on each other too readily, or that they are fairly disconnected from the emotions of the character, throw a strong bond into the mix and see how they react.
It may encourage greater variation in the characters
Rather than min-maxing your nightmarish siege engine of a character, maybe you will put a few extra points into Wisdom, because your cleric sister has rubbed off on you. Maybe a wizard’s fighter sister forces him to drill daily, so he has more points in Constitution than he normally would, or maybe he has a weird weapon specialization to show off because of it. Skill ranks might look different, because the two have worked together so long that they’ve shown each other a few tricks. Conversely, maybe the characters will take unusual skill combinations, because they make up for each others’ blind spots.
It helps with immediate buy-in
This is important for short-term campaigns, one-nighters, and convention play. Why am I here? Oh, because my sibling is on a quest and I’m not leaving them alone without someone to watch their back. Why do I care about thwarting evil if evil is willing to pay better? Because they want to harvest my lover’s unique organs as spell components. Why do I care about these jerks? Because one of them is paying me to keep him alive. It’s easy to pick up a character and play when you understand something about the party dynamic from the get-go.
What about tying them all together?
A family of mercenaries down on their luck and looking for any work they can get. A group of orphans who grew up in the same orphanage before it mysteriously burned down. A merchant and his assistant hiring bodyguards for a difficult caravan route. Four members of the same religious organization hunting for relics, or trying to discover why their chosen deceased saint has seventy-three fingers for sale in the same city.
Giving every character a buy-in at the same time definitely provides a strong basis for a powerful story arch. However, be careful of tying your players’ hands too forcefully, or shoehorning them into one organization. Make sure to leave enough room for real character variety and customization. If you’re going to force everyone to play a family of Halfling circus performers, at least inform them well enough in advance that they know what to expect.
What has been your experience with bonded characters? Let me know in the comments below.